At five in the afternoon.
Exactly five in the afternoon.
A boy fetched the white sheet
at five in the afternoon.
A basket of lime made ready
at five in the afternoon.
The rest was death and death alone
at five in the afternoon.

The wind removed the cotton
at five in the afternoon.
The rust sowed glass and nickel
at five in the afternoon.
Now fight the leopard and the dove
at five in the afternoon.
A thigh with a forsaken horn
at five in the afternoon.
The sounds of the bourdon started
at five in the afternoon.
The bells of arsenic and smoke
at five in the afternoon.
Silent groups on corners
at five in the afternoon.
The bull alone was glad of heart
at five in the afternoon.

When sweat of snow was falling
at five in the afternoon,
when the ring was covered with iodine
at five in the afternoon,
then death laid eggs within the wound
at five in the afternoon.
At five in the afternoon
exactly five in the afternoon.

The bed is a wheeled coffin
at five in the afternoon.
Bones and flutes ring in his ears,
at five in the afternoon.
The bull roared through his forehead now
at five in the afternoon.
The room was luminous with pain
at five in the afternoon.
Far off, the gangrene coming
at five in the afternoon.
An iris horn through his green groins
at five in the afternoon.
Like suns the wounds were burning
at five in the afternoon,
the crowd was breaking windows
at five in the afternoon.
At five in the afternoon.

Ah, terrible five in the afternoon!
It was five by all the clocks!
The shadow of five in the afternoon.

IIThe Spilled Blood

I do not want to see it!

Tell the moon to come,
I do not want to see
Ignacio's blood on the sand.

I do not want to see it!

The moon is open wide.
Horse of quiet clouds,
grey bull-ring of a dream
with willows on the barriers.

I do not want to see it!
Because my memory burns.
Give warning to the jasmines
with their little whiteness.

I do not want to see it!

The cow of the ancient world
passed her sorrowful tongue
over a snout of blood
spilled out upon the sand.
The bulls of Guisando,
almost death, almost stone,
roared like two centuries
weary with treading earth.
No.
I do not want to see it!

Ignacio mounts the steps
with all his death on his back.
He looked for the dawn
and the dawn was not there.
He seeks his confident profile,
the dream disorients it.
He sought his beautiful body
and found his opened blood.
Don't say that I should see it!
I don't want to feel the jet
grow weaker all the time;
that jet of blood which lights
the terraces, which spills
on corduroy and leather
of a thirsty crowd.
Who calls me to appear!
Don't say that I should see it!

He did not close his eyes
seeing the horns come near
but they lifted their heads,
the terrible mothers.
Across the ranches rose
a breath of secret voices
that foremen of pale mist
called to celestial bulls.
There was no prince in Sevilla
could be compared to him,
no sword like his sword
and no heart of such truth.
Like a river of lions
his marvellous strength,
and like a marble torso
his outstanding wisdom.
An air of Andalucian Rome
made his head appear golden,
and his laugh was a spikenard
of wit and intelligence.
How great a fighter of bulls!
How good a mountaineer!
How gentle with the corn
and how hard with the spurs!
How tender with the dew!
How dazzling in the fair!
How tremendous with the last
banderillas of darkness!

But now he sleeps without end.
Now the moss and the grass
with sure fingers unclose
the flower of his skull.
And now his blood comes singing
through marshes and through meadows,
sliding down stiffened horns,
wandering soulless through fog,
stumbling on thousands of hooves
like a long, dark, sad tongue
to form a pool of agony
by starry Guadalquivir.
Oh white wall of Spain!
Oh black bull of sorrow!
Oh hard blood of Ignacio!
Oh nightingale of his veins!
No.
I do not want to see it!
There is no cup to hold it,
no swallows that can drink it,
no frost of light to chill it,
no song nor flood of lilies,
no glass to make it silver.
No.
I do not want to see it!!

IIIThe Body Laid Out

The stone is a forehead on which dreams are moaning,
no winding water, no frozen evergreens.
The stone is a shoulder to carry time
with trees of tears, and ribbons, and planets.

I have seen grey rain flow towards the waves,
lifting its tender riddled arms,
not to be caught by the outstretched stone
which loosens limbs, and doesn't soak up the blood.

For the stone gathers seeds and dark clouds,
larks' skeletons, and wolves of shadow;
but it gives no sound, neither crystals nor fire,
only bull-rings, bull-rings, bull-rings without walls.

Now the well-born Ignacio lies on the stone.
It is finished; what is happening? Look at him:
death has covered him with pale sulphurs,
and placed on him a dark minotaur's head.

It is finished. Rain penetrates his mouth.
Air leaves his collapsed chest like a mad thing,
and Love, sodden with tears of snow,
warms itself above the herds of cattle.

What are they saying? A bad-smelling silence.
We are with a laid-out body that is fading,
with a noble form once rich in nightingales,
and we see it filled with bottomless holes.

Who is wrinkling the shroud? What he says is not true!
No one may sing here, or weep in a corner,
or prick his spurs, or frighten the snake:
here I want only wide-open eyes
to see that body; rest is impossible.

Here I want to see men with strong voices,
who tame horses and change the course of rivers:
men whose skeletons rattle and who sing
with a mouth full of sun and flints.

Here I want to see them. In front of the stone.
In front of this broken-reined body.
I want them to teach me where there is a way out
for this captain bound by death.

I want them to teach me a lament like a river
which has sweet mists and deep banks,
to bear Ignacio's body, and let him disappear
without hearing the bulls' double panting.

Let him disappear in the round bull-ring of the moon
which feigns when young a sad, unmoving beast;
let him disappear by night without the singing of fish
and in the frozen smoke's white thicket.

I do not want his face to be covered with handkerchieves,
I want him to grow used to his death.
Go, Ignacio. Do not feel the hot roaring.
Sleep, soar, rest! The sea dies too!

IVAbsent Soul

The bull does not know you, nor the fig tree,
nor the horses nor the ants of your house.
The child does not know you, nor does the afternoon,
because you have died for ever.

The back of the stone slab does not know you,
nor the black satin shroud in which you crumble.
Your silent remembrance does not know you
because you have died for ever.

The autumn will come, shepherds blowing conch-shells,
misty grapes, and clusters of hills,
but no one will want to look into your eyes
because you have died for ever.

Because you have died for ever,
like all of the dead of this earth,
like all the dead who are forgotten
in a heap of uncared-for dogs.

Nobody knows you. No. But I sing of you.
I sing of your grace for posterity.
Your profile, your maturity of thought.
Your love for death and the taste of his mouth.
The sadness in your light-hearted courage.

Not for a long time will be born, if at all,
an Andalucian so noble.
I sing of his elegance in words that moan,
and remember a sad breeze among the olives.